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"Common sense lost its voice on this one," concluded a Wethersfield, Conn., city councilman, lamenting the local school board's having spent at least $630,000 to "resolve" an ethics complaint against the board's chairwoman -- all because her son had improperly taken a $400 high school course for free. The town's ethics board conducted more than 60 hours of hearings over 11 months, incurring $407,000 in legal expenses, and finally voted, 3-2, to uphold the complaint. (However, the ethics board ordered only that the chairwoman reimburse the $400; the school board then voted to pay all her legal expenses.) [Hartford Courant, 6-10-2011]

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"Science does not trump the testimony of individuals," said Detroit prosecutor Marilyn Eisenbraun, explaining her office's decision in April to disregard DNA evidence that the University of Michigan's Innocence Clinic said exonerates Karl Vinson, 56, who has spent 25 years in prison for rape. Despite the science, Eisenbraun said she had to stick with eyewitness identification by the victim. Although Vinson has been eligible for release for 15 years, the Parole Board keeps turning him down -- because he refuses to acknowledge guilt. (Update: In July, the Michigan Court of Appeals declined to order either Vinson's release or a new trial, but did grant him an extraordinary right to appeal, based on the new evidence.) [Detroit Free Press, 4-18-2011, 7-2-2011]

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In June, as five young men gathered around the Mount Tabor Reservoir near Portland, Ore., one urinated in it, thus "contaminating" the 7.2 million gallons that serve the city, and, said Water Bureau administrator David Shaff, necessitating that the entire supply be dumped. Under questioning by the weekly Portland Mercury whether the water is also dumped when an animal urinates in it (or worse, dies in it), Shaff replied, certainly not. "If we did that, we'd be (dumping the water) all the time." Well, asked the reporter, what's the difference? Because, said Shaff (sounding confident of his logic), "Do you want to be drinking someone's pee?" [Portland Mercury, 6-15-2011]